


Unexpected

by Em_Jaye



Series: The Long Way Around [10]
Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Fix-It, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Nudity, Roommates, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Time Travel, Unintentional Intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 12:08:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20096992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Em_Jaye/pseuds/Em_Jaye
Summary: Woody Allen once said, "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." With that in mind, Darcy had to wonder if there was anyone who could make God laugh quite like Steve Rogers.May 1972: Thursday night





	Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Little_Plebe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Plebe/gifts).

> The credit for this episode goes to stargazergal, crimtastic, and LittlePlebe, who all had a hand in either planting, encouraging, or untangling this idea from my very messy brain.

Darcy liked Thursdays. She worked the morning shift and was home by three to enjoy having the apartment to herself for a few hours and had plenty of time to get ready to meet up with her newfound girlfriends for what was turning into a weekly thing.

She’d always been able to make friends easily, but it still surprised her how much she enjoyed spending time with the other women who worked for June and Ray. Four in particular—Linda, Alice, Tina, and Tangie—had folded her into their squad without batting an eye. They were sweet and welcoming and didn’t push too hard for answers she didn’t have for personal questions. She’d resisted their friendship at first—making excuses not to go out for a drink after a shift or meet up with them for a movie or a game night. She didn’t want to get attached—to make friends and have something to miss when she finally got to go home.

But after almost two years, Darcy had given in to their needling and teasing about not having a life. She’d started going with them to parties—though, keeping her promise to Steve, she _did _start asking about themes before she agreed—and movies and dinners out.

And things like what they’d started doing on Thursday nights—meeting for dinner and catching whatever community class was being offered that week on campus at UC Berkeley. It was part of the school’s new funding to offer free elective classes one night a week, open to the public. So far, since March, they’d painted ceramic elephants and tigers, giggled their way through realigning their chakras, and learned how to build an astrology chart.

The first unseasonably hot Thursday in May, it was flower essences—both harvesting and utilization. Alice’s choice and Darcy had to imagine considerably more fun than it would have been if they hadn’t split two bottles of wine over dinner. 

She was still a little buzzed from a pleasant mix of pinot gris, sweet, heady florals, and friendship when the class was over, and they were getting ready to go their separate ways a little after nine.

“Didn’t you have a purse, white girl?” Tangie asked when they reached the sidewalk.

Darcy looked down and frowned. “I did…” she murmured, absently patting her sides before she remembered. “I left it inside.”

“You want us to wait?” Linda asked.

She shook her head. “No, it’s fine. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” They exchanged a round of cheek kisses before they let Darcy wander back toward the building.

“And why is _she _the only one you call white girl?” Tina asked. “What are the rest of us?”

“You two are not _as _white, trust me,” Tangie said with confidence that made Darcy laugh. “And Alice is Chinese so she doesn’t count.”

“I’m Korean, dumbass,” Darcy heard Alice remind them all before she turned a corner and they were out of earshot.

She was still laughing to herself when she retrieved her purse from the back of the chair she’d been using. It fell over her shoulder with a familiar rattle of her keys, bottle of aspirin, and wallet as she let herself back out of the classroom and collided headfirst with someone in the hallway.

“Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” Darcy apologized without hesitation.

The person with whom she collided was another woman. Taller than Darcy with willowy limbs, long, dark blonde hair pulled halfway up and away from a pretty face with large blue eyes and incredibly familiar cheekbones. “It’s fine; I wasn’t looking where I was going.” She smiled as they straightened up together and Darcy almost fell over again.

She couldn’t stop the way her mouth dropped open. “Oh my God.”

Janet Van Dyne blinked and lifted her sculpted eyebrows. “Are you…hurt?” she asked, not quite reaching concern beyond confusion.

“You’re…” Darcy floundered for a moment before she forced herself to stabilize. “You’re Janet Van Dyne, aren’t you?”

The other woman’s expression changed to one of suspicion. “How…did you know that?” she asked slowly. “Do I know you?”

“No,” Darcy shook her head. “Sorry,” she repeated herself. “You don’t. But I know you. Well, I know _of _you, I guess,” she bit her lip. “I’m…making a terrible first impression.”

Janet took a step back and clutched the notebooks in her arms tighter. “Yes,” she agreed with a nod. “You are. Who are you? And how do you know me?”

She took a deep breath. “My name is Darcy,” she said, keeping her voice low and steady. “And I know _exactly_ how insane I’m going to sound, but I have been looking for you for two years. Do you think it would be possible for me to talk to you for ten minutes?”

Janet’s wary expression did not relax as she studied Darcy with quiet, curious intensity. “_Five_ minutes,” she said finally. “And you better not be as crazy as you sound right now.”

The clock in the empty classroom they’d commandeered read 11:43pm when Darcy finally stopped talking. Across the table, Janet had been writing notes since two minutes into the initial five she had agreed to. The blue pen in her hand had been moving almost the entire time that she’d let Darcy ramble, though her eyes hadn’t dropped down once.

The chalkboard was a mess of squiggly lines that were supposed to represent timelines and what the Ancient One had shown them at the Sanctum, a few poor attempts at drawing Steve’s GPS bracelet from memory, and a bunch of arrows that she’d drawn trying to explain exactly how she and Steve had ended up so very far from home.

She’d tried her hardest to stick the agreement she and Steve had made when they’d first come looking for her. No telling her about Hank Pym or Hope, no mention of SHIELD, and absolutely no telling her what would happen to her in 1989 or what would happen to the rest of the world in 2018.

It was difficult. All the times she’d imagined having the chance to talk to Janet and make this pitch, Steve had been with her. He’d been able to take over for the parts that she still didn’t understand. And—in her imagination at least—he’d known how to gloss over the facts she wasn’t allowed to share.

Darcy looked at the board and frowned before she turned back to Janet and made herself sit down across from her. She folded her hands on the table and waited.

Janet looked at the mess Darcy had made of the chalkboard and then down at the blue ink she’d scrawled over her notepad before she finally set her eyes back on Darcy. “Is that everything?”

The breath left her lungs in a single _whoosh_. “Do you want…more?”

Janet’s narrow shoulders bounced with a little, soft laugh as she closed her eyes and pressed three fingers to her forehead just above her eyebrows. “No,” she said, not looking up. “I think I’ve heard plenty.”

Darcy swallowed. “Okay…” she said slowly, trying to get a feel for which way Janet was leaning. “Do you think you can help me?”

“Sure,” she said easily, surprising Darcy with a shrug. “Sure, yeah, no problem. I can start by reminding you where the door is,” she stood and pushed back her chair in one fluid movement. “And then by having you tell Peter that he _really _outdid himself this time. Really, really convincing work.”

Darcy frowned. “I…don’t know a Peter.”

“Of course you don’t,” Janet responded, rolling her eyes before she held up a hand. “Look, you can tell him I bought it hook, line, and sinker. Let him have a big, stupid laugh at poor Janet, trying to be a real scientist. Just—” she pointed to the door. “Just please get out.”

She felt her mouth open and close. “Trying to be…?” she repeated faintly. “No, you _are _a real scientist.”

Janet rolled her eyes a second time. “Fine,” she threw up her hands and collected her things. “If you don’t want to leave, I will.”

Dread and panic were fighting each other to rise hot and fast in the back of her throat as Darcy watched Janet throw open the classroom door and take off down the hall. The other woman’s legs were longer, and it nearly took a sprint to catch up when she’d finally managed to make her own limbs cooperate. “Janet, please,” she said, grateful when her target stopped and turned around. “I _know _it sounds crazy,” she assured her before she shook her head. “No, I mean, it _is _crazy. This is science-fiction, fantasy novel shit and half the good stuff doesn’t even exist yet for me to use as a reference.” She paused and made herself take a steadying breath. “But you could have stopped me after five minutes,” she reminded. “You could have, but you didn’t. You let me get all the way through this whole crazy story.”

“Yeah,” Janet scoffed. “I was waiting to see when you’d reveal that you were a decent person and stop _lying _and helping those jackasses to make fun of me.”

Darcy dropped her head and let out a heavy, tired sigh. “Do you have any idea how much I would love to be lying to you right now?” she asked with a mirthless chuckle. “I would love it _so much _if I was just some girl who belonged in 1972, who could remember what year she was supposed to be born and where she was when JFK was assassinated and who she watched the moon landing with? Instead of what I _actually _am—a girl who was born in _1989_, who _desperately_ misses being able to Google things and use her electric toothbrush and, y’know what? Yeah. Even listen to Taylor Swift when she's having a bad day. But that _is _who I am and I _don’t _belong here, okay?” she asked as the fire fell quickly from her argument and she dropped her shoulders with another defeated sigh. “And neither does my best friend. All we want is to go home and whether you believe me or not? You’re the only person I trust to try to help us get there.”

A tense, charged moment passed between them before Janet’s lips pressed into a firm, contemplative line. “Why would you come to me?” she asked finally. Her voice had lost its bite. She sounded curious again. And, if Darcy wasn’t mistaken, a little shy. “I’m not even supposed to be here,” she went on with a look around the empty hallway. “The only thing they trust me to do around here is make the coffee and bring them lunch. How could I possibly help you?”

Darcy’s eyes narrowed. “How could you—” she laughed in disbelief. “You’re here, stealing time in a lab in the middle of night because it’s the only chance to have to work on the things that matter to you,” she said. “Because you’re so passionate about what you’re studying that you—what? Deliver coffee all day?—for a bunch of sexist douchebags who probably only kept you out of the department because they’re terrified of how brilliant you are just because it pays your bills while you do your own research. Because you’re a fucking genius that nobody takes seriously just because you happen to be a woman and I’m probably not supposed to tell you this?” she continued as her heart continued to race. “But my friend Jane is going to read about you being the only woman in your field, proving all these men wrong, when she’s a little girl and it’s going to inspire her to grow up and be the biggest pain in the ass, most brilliant scientist in the _world_, okay? That’s not an exaggeration,” she added quickly when she caught the way Janet’s eyes widened slightly. “She’s a tremendous pain in the ass _and _she’s being nominated for a Nobel prize. And most of that is because she read everything she could when she was a little girl about Marie Curie, and Rosalind Franklin, and Janet Van-freaking-Dyne.”

She let her shoulders drop again with another heavy exhale. “So I get that you don’t know what a big deal you are yet,” she said carefully, still feeling as though she was standing on very thin ice. “But when it comes to brilliance in _this_ moment in time and space? There’s no one who even comes close to you. If there was,” she shrugged, “I would have been chasing them for the last two years.”

Janet remained silent and Darcy let her gaze fall to the ugly tile floor between them. She wasn’t usually the praying type—even after everything she’d been through—but as the hallway clock ticked ardently the seconds away above their heads, she found herself begging anyone who was listening that she hadn’t just blown her chance.

“You sound absolutely insane,” she said finally, breaking the tense silence and dragging Darcy’s eyes upward. “I mean, really, _truly_, certifiably insane—you know that, right?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “I know that.”

They looked at each other again for what felt like another ocean of time before Janet shook her head. “But none of those guys are creative enough to come up with a story like this—even as a joke.”

Darcy tried her hardest to keep her hopes dashed on the ground where they belonged. “Are you…saying you might believe me?”

“No,” Janet said firmly and shook her head again. “I definitely do _not _believe you. And I didn’t understand _half_ of what you said,” she assured her before she blew out a tired sigh and brought a hand up to rub at her eyes. “But there’s nothing worse than being brave enough to ask for help, only to be laughed at so,” she shrugged. “I guess I’ll help you.”

She didn’t move. Afraid that if she did, the spell would break, and this would have been a dream. “You will?”

Looking just as surprised by the answer, Janet nodded slowly. “I don’t know how,” she reminded them both. “Or where to start. Or even if I _can _help. But…” she shrugged again. “I’ll do my best.”

Darcy’s knees almost gave out with relief and her vision swam unexpectedly. “Oh my God. _Thank you_,” she said.

Janet smiled tightly and held up her free hand. “I’m not a hugger.”

Darcy rooted herself in place and nodded around a soft laugh as she cleared away the urge to cry and sniffed back the sting behind her nose. “Got it,” she said. “No hugging.”

She could have run home with the energy that was bubbling inside of her, but the bus was just as efficient in getting her there a little after twelve-thirty. She kicked away her sandals and threw her purse on the couch after she locked the door and tore down the hallway.

“Steve!” she skidded to a stop in front of his door and knocked twice. “Steve, wake up!” Unable to wait any longer, she turned the knob and pushed the door open. “I found—_oh my God,” _clapped a hand to her mouth and spun back around on instinct.

In hindsight, she realized, it should have been her eyes that she covered. Because she’d managed to throw open the door to Steve’s room at the exact second he’d thrown off the sheets to stand and open it himself. Although, she had to assume he would have stopped to pull on a pair of pants on the way to the door.

Because the Steve she’d walked in on, sitting on the edge of his bed, was completely naked.

“Jesus Christ,” he exclaimed at the same time she turned around. “What is this? A room inspection?”

“Why are you naked?” she asked the hallway, glad it was dark enough that her blush was mostly hidden.

“Because it’s hot!” he said indignantly. “And I’m in my own room with the door closed; I shouldn’t have to explain myself.”

“Don’t yell at me!”

“You’re not the victim here,” he said over the squeak of his bedframe when he stood up.

“I never said I was,” she replied and covered her eyes again when she realized the mirror in the hallway was still offering her a perfect view of Steve’s bare ass when he bent over to retrieve his pants from the floor. “I didn’t see anything,” she added, forcing herself not to peek through her fingers at the reflection again.

Behind her, she heard Steve run a hand over his face, his palm scraping on his beard. “That’s statistically impossible, given the size of this room and where you were standing, but I appreciate the lie,” he assured her. She heard a zipper. “All clear.”

She turned back around to find him sitting back on the edge of his bed again; the frame squeaked a second time when she dropped down to sit beside him. “Big news that has nothing to do with whether or not I saw your dick.”

Steve rubbed his eyes. “Tonight, at eleven,” he muttered into his palms.

She grabbed his arm and pulled his hand from his face to look at her. “I found Janet.”

He blinked. “Janet Van Dyne?” She nodded. “How? Where?”

“At Berkeley,” she said. “Right where I thought she’d be. Only I was foolish and didn’t take 1970s misogyny into consideration when we first started chasing that lead.”

He blinked again. “Okay…”

“She _has _been working there since 1970, but not officially. She has this friend Tim who lets her use his lab on weeknights so she can do her work without anyone realizing it,” she smacked his arm with excitement. “That’s why she wasn’t in the records! She works for some contracted food and coffee delivery service during the day and then Tim lets her into his lab before he goes home every night. She wouldn’t be on any records, anywhere.”

He sat up straighter at the this revelation. “That’s…kind of brilliant.”

“It’s completely brilliant!” Darcy exclaimed. “She gets access to everything she needs without any piece of shit Mad-Men department heads palming her ass and telling her no at every turn. It’s brilliant.”

“And she believes you?” Steve asked, skeptically.

“Oh, absolutely not,” Darcy shook her head. “Not even a little bit. _But_,” she went on before he could look too crestfallen. “She’s going to help us anyway. Because she’s amazing and brilliant and I could just kiss her on her brilliant perfect lips except she doesn’t like to be hugged.”

She watched this news settle over him slowly, pulling the corner of his lips into a small smile that looked cautiously optimistic. “So…there’s a chance we might not be stuck here forever after all?” he asked finally.

Darcy nodded, almost giddy. “There’s a chance.” Unable to stop a muffled squeal, still bursting with excitement, Darcy threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. He laughed and let his arms circle easily around her.

Because unlike Janet, Darcy _did _like to be hugged.

And Steve knew that by now.

**Author's Note:**

> Perhaps you've been on Tumblr this week and thought I could be INUNDATED with photos of naked Chris Evans and somehow not work it into this fic? You thought wrong.
> 
> \---
> 
> Come play with me on tumblr: @idontgettechnology and join me at ishipitpod.com for weekly podcast on fandom and fanfic by yours truly. 
> 
> *kisses*


End file.
